For them to be prosecuted as a monopoly, or be considered one legally, it would have to be shown that they achieved or maintain their dominant market position by preventing or undermining competition. Say by having a bunch of exclusivity deals to keep big name titles only on their storefront, or by buying out any competitor that gained traction.
Monopoly isn’t about being the biggest seller in a market, it’s about being the biggest player in the market by undermining competition and restricting commerce.
Edit: want to clarify there is a distinction between the legal meaning of monopoly (see the Sherman anti trust act and other subsequent laws and rulings) and the colloquial usage (Only seller in the market). Steam is nether.
It’s not an efficiency drive, it’s an eliminate programs that they don’t like or don’t care about drive, efficiency is just a dog whistle in this context.
They want to free up budget and positions for the sake of paying off people they need the support of. Budget for “special projects” and budget for tax cuts so wealthy people not in on the con don’t complain to much.
It has the side benefit of making it easier to subjugate federal workers, instill terror with in them so they will just play along for fear of being fired.
From their perspective it seems like an efficient strategy to get what they want, but they’re being a bit myopic about what is important and don’t realize how many problems they are causing that can now directly be blamed on them come the next election cycle.
Nothing, but he realizes he’s in a bind where one of his big backers wants the war over and he can’t force that outcome, he can end US support but that won’t end the war, just make it bloodier, and loose him domestic support.
Lmao, he realizes he can’t just end the war because it’s not his to end, so he wants there to be some way for him to manipulate who’s in charge.
Ukraine can just say “no, we’re not violating our own laws because you want us to, you can stop supporting us if you don’t approve, but see how that goes over for you domestically.”
I really do want to see risc V succeed in the desk top and laptop space. The fact that there are only two major architectures and both are owned by companies is a serious potential issue. Especially if they both ended up being owned by one company somehow.
Personally I’ve never been a huge fan of JRPGs, Some I’ve enjoyed, but rarely will I ever play them twice.
Also I think there’s a fair argument to be made that if you cannot play a role, if there are no choices to be made on how you play it, it’s not really a role playing game. It’s action adventure if it’s a linear story with only one way to play it.
I hadn’t even thought about preferences for photorealism being a streamlining thing, but it does fit the idea.
I think it’s also a risk aversion thing as well. Few people will complain about a game looking realistic, so it’s very low risk from the point of view of publishers/investors/marketing. Most people will prefer a unique and stylized look that meshes with the game, but investors and marketing teams can’t be sure in any given case, so it’s written off as a risk.
For me, what I like to see in an RPG, is the ability to play a game multiple times and have notably different experiences, both in terms of play-style and narrative. It should make me want to go back and play again to see what I missed or how else I could do it.
The idea of having multiple ways to deal with a quest, and having that impact further story beats in meaningful ways is what I want to see. What i don’t want to see is meaningless scale full of nothing but filler.
I don’t think dagger fall is the best example because much of its size was just procedurally generated landscapes. The ability to actually specialize and complete quests in unique ways, as well as a branching story, is great. Mindlessly massive map, not so much.
I think, at this point, most of the nostalgia is for Skyrim, despite being the newest one in the series, it is nearly 14 years old now and way more people have played it. It had issues, and lost a lot of what was great in Morrowind, but it’s a beacon of quality compared to what came after.
It’s started to impact their success though, starfield has only sold like 3 million compiles so far, compared to the 12.5 million of fallout 4 on launch day. Hell, Morrowind has sold 4 million copies, albeit over 23 years.
It’s probably to late for Bethesda to turn things around, but, it’s a great example of what not to do for other studios and publishers.
It’s a question of longer development time with smaller teams, or short timelines with big teams. A small team working on content in series is more cohesive, but, requires a longer timeline. A big team can do a lot in a short time by making content in parallel, but this necessitates that content be siloed to prevent needing constant revision. A few long quest lines with lots of outcomes, or a bunch independent quests with simple outcomes.
A small team working longer will cost the same as a big team working shorter (generally speaking). But the priority is short timelines, for the sake of chasing trends and packing the latest greatest tech in. This same kind of priority also leads to spectacular failures of long timeline games, like “black flag” or “duke nukem forever “. The issue there is not the long timeline, but the constant changes in priority to chase trends.
Would be nice if those cushy piles of money got in to the hands of the local orgs doing material good. Might convince people that the party isn’t just there to Hoover up money based on fear.
part of the change that needs to be made is to start incorporating organizations and groups that have actual local presence in to the planning structure, and stop relying on consultant groups who have little to no direct connections to people on the ground. Groups that do something in communities and are active beyond just the election cycle, something along the lines of food banks, unions, and non profits that do actual material good for people, not just write white papers.
They have much more trust, and much better understanding of what the needs and concerns are, rather than people who’s main source of information on issues is opinion pieces in nationally published “news”.
It’s not necessarily even more expensive to develop, it just impossible to do with the management techniques brought in recent years. Techniques brought in with the intention of streamlining personnel management and to make lay offs easier.
This is story is rage bate for the news media to obscure the attempt to purge the civil service to make space for cronies.
Just put out an ultimatum to 94% of civil servants. “Work from the office or else be fired” including “paid leave” until September.
From what I know, they’re lumping a broad range in to this “end of work from home” order. Lot of people included work remotely as part of their job, such as USGS people who are doing survey work in the field or staff at embassies.
Often times, the investors or stakeholders at these large video game companies have their backgrounds in Hollywood, or Tech. They then choose leadership who will run the company along the lines of what works well in those industries. This results in optimization being pretty damn near the bottom of the priorities.
What has been most profitable in Hollywood? Not the final quality of the movie, but the marketability. How many people did you get to come see it, doesn’t matter if they loved it, so long as they heard about it, then choose to buy a ticket.
What has worked well in tech? Getting to market as fast as possible with the latest technical developments. Doesn’t matter if it’s a buggy mess and riddled with technical debt, so long as we capture as much market share as possible before anyone else can compete.
Combine these two approaches and what do you get? The fanciest graphics, huge maps, endless procedural fetch quests to make it look big, all so people will preorder it. Oh and it needs to be done in 2 years or else someone else will beat us to being the fortnight of “live service extraction farming sims”.
So lots of demands on what needs to be in it, and no time to do proper QA, let alone optimize it, that will just have to be done in patches after launch.
The cost of poor optimization gets externalized to the customers who need to buy new hardware or run it on settings so low it could be mistaken for half-life.
The major three currents of thought I’ve noticed are:
“They earned that money fairly, and by fairly I mean they didn’t get caught doing anything legal (Or did get caught but didn’t face consequences), which means they’re smart, thus more deserving than people who weren’t smart enough to do it. The fact they have that much money proves they deserve it”
Or
“I don’t like when I have to pay taxes and think they should be lowered or gone, this is now an ideological position rather than a position based on personal self interest, therefore I will support any tax cuts even if they don’t benefit me directly”
Or
“ I dislike these government programs, but, these programs are generally popular. So I can’t convince a majority to support cutting them. Instead, I will support cutting taxes to increase the budget deficit and then support cutting the programs to shrink the budget deficit”
The two that refused the pardons only had very light sentences and misdemeanor charges, so no long term rights losses like with a felony. One had a 90 day sentence and a fine, the other with 60 days and 3 years probation.
The pardon doesn’t do anything for them at this point, and both seem to legitimately regret their involvement and don’t want to act like it was ok. At this point, accepting the pardon only really helps trump.
For them to be prosecuted as a monopoly, or be considered one legally, it would have to be shown that they achieved or maintain their dominant market position by preventing or undermining competition. Say by having a bunch of exclusivity deals to keep big name titles only on their storefront, or by buying out any competitor that gained traction.
Monopoly isn’t about being the biggest seller in a market, it’s about being the biggest player in the market by undermining competition and restricting commerce.
Edit: want to clarify there is a distinction between the legal meaning of monopoly (see the Sherman anti trust act and other subsequent laws and rulings) and the colloquial usage (Only seller in the market). Steam is nether.